Many of earth's known oil reserves are contained in material that does not readily yield oil by traditional methods, such as drilling. Such reserves are contained in oil shale, tar sand, coal, slurp-sludge, etc. Moreover, some of the oil that has been extracted from the earth has been used to create synthetic products, such as tires, plastics, etc. As energy costs increase, the desirability of producing oil from naturally occurring reserves or synthetically produced oil source material also increases. Thus, there is a need for a method of producing oil from such source materials.